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We weren’t the only ones perplexed by Hulk Hogan going all N-word on us a while ago, which is why he had to sit down with “Good Morning America’s” Amy Robach yesterday morning and explain himself — if you call growing up in a rough, low-income neighborhood an explanation for using racial epithets.

After saying he was “to the point where I wanted to kill myself” when he was caught on tape making extremely inflammatory statements about his daughter Brooke dating some black guy, Robach asked Hogan point-blank if he’s a racist. He responded:

“I’m not a racist but I never should have said what I said. It was wrong. I’m embarrassed by it. People need to realize that you inherit things from your environment. And where I grew up was south Tampa, Port Tampa, and it was a really rough neighborhood, very low-income. And all my friends, we greeted each other saying that word.”

Asked whether he thought it would be fair to say he inherited a racial bias, Hulk added:

“I would say that is very fair. The environment I grew up in south Tampa and all my white friends, all my black friends, to hear the word on a daily basis when they’d greet me in the morning, that’s what they’d say to me, ‘Good morning,’ so-and-so. I think that was part of the culture and the environment I grew up in and I think that’s fair to say.”

One might be inclined to believe that if Hogan’s use of the N-word didn’t conveniently reemerge at the thought of his daughter “f*cking the black guy’s son,” as he said in the leaked tapes. I highly doubt he said what’s up my n*gga to Dennis Rodman and all the other people of color who defended him after the backlash. Racist or not, Hogan quickly turned into a beggar when Robach brought up the former WWE wrestler’s fans.

“Oh, my gosh. Please forgive me. Please forgive me,” he said. “I think if you look at the whole picture of who Hulk Hogan is, you can see over all the years that there’s not a racist bone in my body.”